I get it. After getting pegged as creating boring classes, online educators have moved from filling endless online classes with read and reflect assignments and TF/MC assessments to trying to entertain the learners with dancing ponies. But is real learning taking place? Are the outcomes being met? How do we know? What measurements are we taking? How are we assessing the assessments? One thing I find is that there is so much time being spent building and rebuilding classes to “make them better” that we never really have time (take the time) to fully evaluate the value of what we are putting out there. Can I build a class that works? That depends on your definition of “works.” We can bore them to death with read and reflection or we can entertain them with flash files and ppts, but ultimately we are responsible for proving they are learning.

What about end-of-course surveys? Aren’t they giving us significant feedback? End-of-course surveys are giving us what the students want and not necessarily what they need. A small child wants to eat endless piles of candy, but a good parent (teacher) knows he needs a well-rounded diet. We have to be purposeful in our assessments of whether the outcomes are being met by designing assignments that give clear indications of the students’ ability to demonstrate mastery of the concept. The question is whether we will slow down long enough to put the systems/processes in place to make clear evaluative processes happen. “If it doesn’t work, throw something else at it” may work well in some obscure scenario, but it definitely is not an acceptable approach to online education … and yet we do it.

Thanks for being a voice of reason for the students.

On another note, there’s been a fascinating change in measuring value in sports. In Baseball, the field of Sabremetrics has revolutionized management by creating more subtle statistical measures of individual worth, than the old standards, such as batting average, earned run average and home runs. I’m wondering if we can use this technique in business. Can we measure factors such as the ability to de stress a situation, percentage of positive feedback, idea generation, or laughs generated per hour? What factors do you think should be measured?